Interview
Building bridges with thoughts and words
Name: Mohammad Fazlhashemi
With one foot in Muslim culture and the other in Western culture, Mohammad Fazlhashemi views relationships and conflicts with a unique perspective.
He has that ability to explain complex thoughts and events with few words. For example, in the factual way he presents them, the seemingly endless and complicated conflicts in the Middle East and the chaos in Iraq become as easy to understand as the fact that the right foot fits into the right shoe.
However, he views his role as a researcher as someone who does anything but simplifies matters. Someone who sees the small links that are a part of a chain of events and who takes them all into account.
“Do not settle for simple explanations to problems and do not take anything for granted,” says Mohammad Fazlhashemi.
In brief, his thesis, published in 1994, is about the view of politics in Muslim countries. The study centres on the thoughts of a medieval Muslim philosopher, but the thesis could just as well be used to try to understand today’s complex situation in the Middle East.
He has since shifted focus from the Middle Ages to the present day and studied the view of Europe and the West among Muslim thinkers.
Mohammad Fazlhashemi’s knowledge has made him somewhat of a celebrity. He has written multiple articles in both the local and national press, held popular science lectures, been on TV and experienced something that he considers to be one of the high points of his career, namely being a summer speaker on the P1 radio channel.
“I did not really understand what a big deal it was when I accepted the offer of being a summer speaker on the radio. It was a great honour to be able to participate.”
With one foot in his native culture and one in Western culture, he sees the relationships and not-so-seldom conflicts that characterise the communication between Muslim countries and the Western World with a unique perspective.
“In that I have insight into both cultures, I may have better qualifications to explain the events between them than others,” says Mohammad Fazlhashemi.
He does not see himself as a mediator between the two cultures, although he drew attention by not choosing sides during the heated debates that characterised the time after the publication of the Muhammed cartoons in Denmark. Neither Muslims who cited the ban on depicting the prophet or the Western World who wanted to view the entire story as a case of freedom of the press were right, according to Fazlhashemi. The depiction ban was a question of interpretation and the freedom of the press argument was untenable because Denmark’s policies towards Muslims already bordered on bullying before the publication.
This disarming role may be something that comes with the package, when one sees both sides of the coin and at the same time has the ability to explain how they look.
To constantly be able to build a better world demands someone who knows how the building blocks were laid out from the beginning, which extensions did not fit with the existing buildings and which comprise the foundation. This is where the historian of ideas comes in.
Name: Mohammad Fazlhashemi
Born: 1961
Hidden talent: Good at cooking food, preferably Persian
Hobby: Long walks. A late-summer mountain hike on Laisaliden with a fishing trip is hard to beat.
Best record: Ali-Reza Assar, an Iranian singer, Peps Persson and Helen Sjöholm
Likes to eat and drink: Persian, for example rice and some type of stew. Drink water or milk.
Motto: A Persian expression: “Success is achieved by he who perseveres, walking slowly, quietly and collectedly”.
